Bang for your buck 

I’m not going to lie, I saw the price of this grill AFTER I set it up and tested it. I was initially shocked at how expensive it was, but honestly, I think it’s worth every penny. If I would’ve seen the price before testing it out I might have thought it was ridiculous, but you get what you pay for and this grill was not only durable, but SO impressive! Not only is it the most compact grill I’ve ever seen, but the quality of the grill grates, the space available for grilling, and the heat it puts out for cooking…like I said…impressive! 

Packaging 

This grill is packaged very well. You can tell that the nomadiQ team takes pride in their products. They seem to understand that people are paying a pretty penny for this grill, and they want them to know from the minute they receive the product that they are going to be getting their moneys worth. 

They have a fantastic marketing team that decided they were going to leave nothing up to chance. They want people to know exactly how this grill is meant to be set up and used, and they don’t want their customers to have to go searching to find the information they need. Right on the outside of the cardboard box the grill comes in is a QR code that takes you to a quick 2.5 min video that shows you everything you need to know to use this grill. From start to finish it shows you the unpacking, use, and cleaning capabilities of the grill…in under 3 minutes! I was impressed before I even opened the box. 

When you do open the box you see yet another very carefully packed styrofoam mold customized for the grill and a branded sleeve that slides over it keeping everything tightly in place. They took the opportunity to use this space for branding and more relevant and helpful information showing you steps 1-4 on how to set up and use this grill if you completely ignored the QR code and video. 

Everything is carefully wrapped in an extra piece of protective plastic inside the Styrofoam, and very easy to access. Nothing was greasy and nothing was scratched. 

Set up

As you open up the Styrofoam to pull out the grill, everything is in one piece. I repeat, there is NO setup for this grill. The only steps you need to take to fire this baby up are to swivel out the grill's feet for stabilization, place the drip trays in place once those feet have been swung out, and hook up the gas. These few easy steps are steps that you will need to take every single time you use the grill since it does fold up after use to be more portable and compact. These couple of things took me less than 3 minutes to complete, and now that I have done it once I know it would be even quicker in the future. 

As you pull out the grill, you will notice there is one more tag hooked to the grill handles showing you the step-by-step instructions if you missed the other two areas where they try to make you aware of how to set up and use the grill. The packaging and branding are high quality, clean, and thoughtful. Everything about this screams “a brand that cares” that’s for sure. 

The grill looks more like a purse when you first take it out of the box. It comes with a handy shoulder strap that you can use, but it also has a handle for carrying if you prefer. There are two nobs on either side of the compact grill that you pull straight out, lock into place, and then the handles pull up and out to create the grill surface you will be using. It really is THAT easy. 

The one thing I will say is that you need to make sure the gas connectors are screwed all the way for the igniter switch to work. Unlike other grills where if you get one burner lit it will most likely catch the others on fire if they are outputting gas, this is essentially two separate grills and burners on either side so you just need to double-check that all connections are tight before hitting the ignition. 

Size 

Let’s talk about the size. This thing is TINY! I joked in the office that it’s my new favorite handbag. In fact, I know trending handbags bigger than this grill when it’s all folded up. 

Honestly, it’s incredible how they engineered this thing to function as a full-blown portable gas BBQ grill, yet fold up into practically nothing making traveling with it so light and easy. If I was camping, sitting on a beach, tailgating with my truck, using it on the balcony of my apartment, this is hands down the portable grill I would be using. 

There are no open exposed wires, nothing about it that makes you worry that it will get caught on something, and no dirty grill parts exposed to the outside. It’s tiny yet durable, clean yet dependable, and lightweight yet high quality for a great grilling experience literally ANYWHERE outdoors. 

Grilling / Usage 

For being such a small portable grill that you can carry around anywhere, it has a surprisingly large cooking space. There is 226 sq ft of grill, which is similar to some of the larger portable grills like the Char-broil and Webber. 

We tested this grill with 4 huge burgers, and we could’ve definitely fit another burger on each side of the grill. If our burgers were smaller, we could’ve probably grilled 8 at a time. 

The nice thing about this grill is that it is actually two separate burners with dual temp control, allowing you to manage the temperature on either side of the grill. On one side you could be charring burgers on high heat, and on the other side you could be grilling up some veggies like asparagus or zucchini on low. While other grills often offer two burners, because the grill has one base, the heat on one side of the grill can still impact the other. This grill comes with a gas hose that has a pressure distributor allowing the gas to go to either side of the grill as well. 

Unlike other grills, this portable grill does not have a hood. If you were trying to melt cheese on your burgers, or cook a thick steak to a certain internal temperature, it might take a little longer on this grill than it would if you had a hood. Without a hood it also makes for a lot of smoke so it absolutely needs to be used outdoors, and away from any open doors or windows. 

The burners are very close to the non-stick iron grates because the grill itself is not very deep. I really liked this feature because it gave our burgers a wonderful char on the outside since the flame was just about touching them. The grease pans were directly underneath the grilling surface so it wasn’t pooling inside the grill or flowing down the surface before going into the pan. This is great for the cleanliness of the grill, but I will say I was a little bit worried that the grease trays were going to overflow. After cooking 4 ground chuck burgers, which are very high in fat content, the grease trays were almost full to the brim. I would just recommend keeping an eye on them and dumping them in between cooks when necessary. The nice thing is they are plastic and pull right off so it’s an easy fix even in the middle of the cooking process.  

Cleaning 

Cleaning this grill was a breeze. The grates pull right out once you lift them up and unlatch. The grates are dishwasher safe, but I chose to wash mine by hand and the grease and grit came right off with a sponge. 

The removable drip trays can be easily dumped and cleaned as well. There was some grease that dripped inside the grill area, but not much and I tried my best to wipe it down with a wet rag. 

The outside of the grill barely had any grease and spatter. The opening for grease to get into the trays is about as wide as a #2 pencil, but it is amazing how fast and how much grease actually leaves the grill. 

Once those grates are clean and the trays are dumped I would feel very comfortable folding the grill back up and putting it in my car without worrying about a mess on my carpets or seats.